Mar  X  on  Mallock 

of 

Facts  vs.  Fiction 

BY  DANIEl.  DE 

LEON 

A  N  Address  Delivered  in 
Maennerchor  Hall,  New 
York,  Tuesday,  January  21, 
1908,  Under  the  Auspices  of 
Section  New  York,  Socialist 
Labor  Party  :  :  :  :  : 

Stenographically  Reported  by  The 
Waldo  Typewriting  Co. 

€ 

Published  by  the 

National  Executive  Committee 
Socialist  Labor  Party 

45  Rose  Street 

New  York  City 

1919 

PRICE 

CENTS 

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BUSINF?-  r  .Vi  , 
1791  Missio:-:  ST.,  i.- 


-  T-'N,  f  7 

i-:  r  '  '  ' 

.  K  ''.A  •-  -  -7'. 

^  ^  P.  M. 

KrxNCiSCO,  CAiJK. 

'i 

\ 


Marx 

FACTS 


ON  Mallock 

•  •  ••  OR..  * .  • 

vs.  FICTION 


Workingmen  and  Workingwomen  of  New  York; 

First  a  word  on  the  title  of  this  address.  A  critical  ac¬ 
quaintance  was  much  surprised,  when  he  learned  from  me 
that  Marx  had  never  written  a  line  on  Mallock.  The  title — 
‘Alarx  on  Mallock” — he  thought  was  misleading.  It  is  not. 
Sound  reasoning  answers  nonsense  in  advance,  and  is  a 
tommentary  on  ail  future  nonsense.  The  Eev.  Jasper  in  the 
South  denied,  in  this  generation,  that  the  sun  does  not  move 
around  the  earth.  “The  sun  do  move !”  declared  the  sapient 
Jasper.  An  address  entitled  “Copernicus  on  Jasper”  would 
be  to  the  point,  although  the  Eev.  Jasper  did  not  bestow  his 
wisdom  upon  earth  but  many  a  century  after  the  great  as¬ 
tronomer  Copernicus  had  for  all  time  settled  the  question 
about  the  earth’s  motion  around  the  sun.  It  is  so  also  with 
Marx  and  Mallock. 

There  is  another,  a  probable,  misapprehension  thaCl  wish 
to  remove  before  entering  upon  my  subject.  I  had  a  more 
important,  a  vastly  more  important  object  in  view,  when  I 
accepted  the  invitation  to  deliver  this  address,  than  to  over¬ 
throw,  refute,  or  confute  Mallock.  That  vastly  more  im¬ 
portant  purpose  is  to  unroll  before  you  one  of  the  most  bril¬ 
liant  chapters  of  Marx’s  “Capital” — a  chapter  in  which  eco¬ 
nomics  and  sociology,  history  and  the  philosophy  of  history, 
are  so  sublimely  blended  that  to  study  that  chapter  is,  in 
itself,  a  liberal  education.  In  unrolling  that  chapter  before 
you,  Mallock  will,  happily,  serve  as  a  foil.  The  contrast  will 


3 


Marx  on  Mallock 


set  out  Marx  all  the  more  radiant.  Incidentally,  of  course, 
Mallock  will  be  eclipsed,  or  confuted,  in  point  of  fact  and 
in  point  of  reasoning;  but  that  is  only  incidentally.  It  can¬ 
not,  in  this  generation,  be  the  main  purpose  of  an  address 
on  economics. 

I  hold  in  my  hand  a  booklet  issued  by  the  public  lecture 
bureau  of  the  National  Civic  Federation.  The  booklet  is  en¬ 
titled  ‘^Socialism.^’  It  contains  Mallock’s  recent  lectures 
here  in  America  against  Socialism.  It  is  the  booklet  which 
the  advertisements  for  this  meeting  recemmended  you  to  read 
in  advance — especially  its  Sixth  Lecture,  which  may  be  said 
to  sum  up  the  others.  I  hope  you  have  followed  the  recom¬ 
mendation.  It  will  greatly  assist  you  in  understanding  the 
issue. 

The  key-note  to  Mallock’s  contention  is  that  Marx — and 
with  him  the  Socialist  propagandist — ignores,  if  he  does  not 
deny,  the  existence  and  necessity  of  intelligence  in  the  pro¬ 
duction  of  the  vast  amount  of  wealth  produced  in  modern 
society.  Not  that  Mallock  claims  that  Marx  ignores,  or  de¬ 
nies,  intelligence,  and  the  necessity  of  such,  on  the  part  of 
the  operative  in  the  operations  of  his  hands.  Not  that.  Mat- 
lock’s  contention  is  that  Marx  is  blind  to  a  special  class  of 
intelligence,  an  intelligence  that,  as  Mallock  expresses  it, 
differs  ‘‘not  in  degree,  but  in  kind”  from  the  intelligence  that 
the  manual  operative  exercises,  and  which  intelligence,  dif¬ 
ferent  in  kind,  ig  the  actual  source  of  the  modern  great  out¬ 
put  in  w^ealth.  This  particular  intelligence  Mallock  calls 
“ability,”  “directive  ability” ;  he  locates  the  same  in  “The 
Few,”  the  capitalists;  and  from  these  premises  he  concludes 
that,  seeing  “The  Few,”  the  capitalist  class,  are  the  fertile 
source  of  the  greatly  increased  output,  that  increased  output, 
or  “increment,”  as  Mallock  calls  it,  belongs  of  right  to  “The 
Few,”  the  capitalist  class,  and  not  to  the  many,  as  Marx 
claims.  * 

This  is  the  substance  of  Mallock’s  position.  But  let  us 


RBC 

NcU 


Marx  on  Mallock 


3 


place  Mallock  upon  the  witness-stand  by  quoting  him.  liter¬ 
ally  as  he  elaborates  his  theory  from  step  to  step,  from  prem¬ 
ises  to  conclusion,  in  the  course  of  his  lectures. 

On  page  11  of  the  booklet.  Lecture  1,  Mallock  states  the 
‘‘theory”  or  “doctrine”  of  Karl  Marx  in  these  words: 

all  wealth  is  due  to  the  labor  of  the  average  majority — to  that  or¬ 
dinary  manual  exertion  which  in  all  cases  is  so  equal  in  kind  that 
an  hour  of  it  on  the  part  of  any  one  man  is  approximately  as  effica¬ 
cious  as  an  hour  of  it  on  the  part  of 'any  other. 

In  the  course  of  the  Ith  and  last  lecture,  which  sum¬ 
marizes  his  argument  in  detail,  Mallock  returns  to  the  point, 
and  says  on  page  115: 

I  pointed  out  that,  as  an  instrument  of  popular  agitation,  socialism 
was  based  on  the  doctrine  which  Karl  Marx  managed  to  invest  with 
a  semblance  of  scientitic  truth,  to  the  efl'ect  that  all  wealth  is  pro¬ 
duced  by  ordinary  manual  labor — 

These  two  passages — I  quote  only  these  two,  there  are  many 
more — expressly  claim  that  the  Marxian  doctrine  is  to  the 
effect  that  “all  wealth  is  produced  by  ordinary  manual  labor,” 
in  other  words,  that  manual  labor  is  the  sole  })roducer  of 
wealth.  This  is  the  basis — the  necessary  and  the  false  basis, 
as  I  shall  prove  to  you  before  I  close — for  the  superstructure 
of  Mallock’s  theory,  which  he  proceeds  to  elaborate  with  the 
following  reasoning. 

At  the  top  of  page  116  Mallock  argues: 

The  doctrine  of  Marx,  as  to  the  all-productivity  of  labor  is,  so  I 
pointed  out,  virtually  quite  adequate  to  explain  the  production  of 
wealth  in  very  early  communities,  and  even  in  certain  remote  and 
primitive  groups  to-day;  but  the  amount  of  wealth  per  head  of  the 
industrial  population  in  such  communities  is  proverbially  small  in 
amount,  and  very  meager  in  kind.  It  affords  a  contrast,  and  not  a 
parallel  to,  the  amount  and  kind  of  wealth  produced  under  the  mod¬ 
ern  system.  What  is  produced  per  head  in  the  latter  case  is  indeffn- 
itely  higher  in  quality,  and  more  then  ten  times  greater  in  quantity, 
than  what  is  produced  in  the  former:  and  the  question  is,  therefore, 
what  is  the  cause  of  the  difference — the  small  out-put  and’the  great? 

As  will  presently  appear,  when  we  shall  enjoy  the  treat  of 
hearing  Marx  himself,  with  the  exception  of  the  introductory 


4 


Marx  on  Malloch 


sentence  in  the  passage  that  I  have  just  read,  and  in  which, 
as  you  will  presently  see,  Marx  is  wrongly  quoted — with  the 
exception  of  that  introductory  sentence,  the  Socialist  has  no 
fault  to  find  with  the  passage.  It  is  in  fact,  as  you  will  pres¬ 
ently  perceive,  a  page  from  Marxian  economics,  which  Marx 
states  with  infinitely  more  lucidity.  But  confining  our¬ 
selves  to  Mallock,  for  the  present,  his  argument  is: — Vast  is 
the  contrast  between  the  amount  of  wealth  produced  by  prim¬ 
itive,  and  the  amount  of  wealth  produced  by  modern  society. 
What,  asks  Mallock,  is  the  reason,  or  the  cause,  of  the  differ¬ 
ence? 

Before  answering  the  question,  Mallock  very  correctly  re¬ 
sorts  to  the  analytic  method  of  elimination,  by  considering 
and  eliminating  possible  answers  that  might  suggest  them¬ 
selves,  and  yet  are  mistaken.  On  the  same  page,  116,  he 
reasons : 

No  reference  to  skill  or  the  exceptional  craftsmanship  of  individuals 
will  provide  us  with  any  answer:  for  were  exceptional  skill,  as  we 
see  in  the  case  of  an  illuminated  missal,  or  a  cup  by  Benvenuto 
Cellini,  whilst  it  will  produce  individual  commodities  of  almost  price¬ 
less  value,  will  produce  only  a  few  of  them,  and  the  cost  of  these 
will  be  extravagant,  whilst  the  kind  of  commodities  which  are  typical 
of  modern  production  is  a  kind  which  is  distinctly  cheap  and  suscept¬ 
ible  of  indefinite  multiplication.  Indeed,  in  the  production  of  any 
article  of  modern  wealth,  the  necessity  for  rare  skill  is  a  draw-back, 
and  makes  the  supply  of  the  supply  at  once  costly  and  uncertain. 

Again,  as  will  duly  transpire,  no  fault  can  be  found  with 
the  reasoning.  It  is  Marxian,  up  to  the  handle — primitive  or 
pre-capitalist  society  yields  a  meager  production  of  wealth; 
capitalist  society  yields  an  abundance,  and  is  even  capable 
of  multiplying  the  abundance  many  fold.  The  individual 
skill  of  the  operative  is  not  the  cause  of  the  increase;  indeed, 
the  greater  the  skill  that  an  article  requires  for  its  produc¬ 
tion  the  smaller  is  the  output  thereof.  Individual  skill,  or 
the  intellect  of  the  individual  manual  laborer,  being  rather  a 
drawback  to,  than  a  promoter  of,  plenty,  what  is  the  cause  of 
the  plentifulness  in  modern  production?  The  next  passage 


Marx  on  Mallock 


5 


from  the  testimony  of  witness  Mallock  furnishes  his  answer. 
On  that  same  page,  116,  the  witness  avers: 

The  great  factor  which  differentiates  modern  production  from  produc¬ 
tion  of  all  other  kinds  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  operation  of  or¬ 
dinary  or  even  skilled  labor,  but  consists  in  the  mental  faculties  by 
which  labor  is  directed:  and  to  these  faculties  I  give  the  name  of 
ability — 

The  answer  contained  in  this  passage  is  still  rather  vague; 
but  it  leads  up  rapidly  to  something  definite.  “Ability,”  the 
fact  that  “ability”  is  needed  does  not  yet  locate  the  ability. 
Further  down,  however,  you  will  find  the  Mallockian  point 
clinched  by  a  definition  and  the  location  of  the  ability.  “Abil¬ 
ity,”  he  proceeds  to  define  as 

indicating  certain  powers  residing  in  the  minds  of  THE  FEW. 

The  cat  is  out.  “The  Few,”  of  course,  are  the  capitalist 
class.  The  remaining  passages,  on  this  particular  head,  I 
shall  go  over  rapidly.  I  cite  them  merely  for  the  sake  of 
presenting  Mallock’s  position  in  all  its  fullness. 

On  page  117  ]\Iallock  re-describes  the  limitations  of  manual 
labor — 

I  further  pointed  out  that  between  labor  and  directing  ability  the 
difference  was  one  not  of  degree  but  of  kind,  and  that  labor,  whether 
skilled  or  unskilled,  stood  for  the  mind  of  a  man  directing  the 
operations  of  his  own  private  pair  of  hands,  these  operations  ending 
with  the  handiwork  on  which  the  man  is  engaged,  and  not  affecting 
the  handiwork  of  any  man  excepting  himself. 

He  then  tersely  contrasts  manual  labor  with  “ability” — 

Ability,  I  said,  on  the  other  hand,  stands  for  the  minS  of  some  one 
man,  not  affecting  any  labor  of  his  own  hands  at  all,  but  influencing 
simultaneously  the  labor  of  any  number  of  other  men. 

Finally  Mallock  epitomizes  his  argument  at  the  bottom  of 
page  117  in  these  words: 

The  productivity,  in  short,  of  the  labor  of  the  many  in  the  modern 
world  depends  altogethei  on  the  directive  faculties  of  the  few.  The 
many  do  little  more  than  supply  a  minimum,  or  a  unit,  which  the 
ability  of  the  few  multiplies. 

and  on  page  118  in  this  form : 

whilst  the  many,  in  modern  a.s  well  as  in  primitive  societies,  produce 


6 


Marx  on  MallocJc 


a  minimum  of  wealth,  without  which  there  would  be  no  wealth  to 
increase,  the  increment,  by  which  modern  production  is  differentiated 
from  primitive,  is  due  to  the  direction  of  the  few,  and  not  to  the 
labor  of  the  many. 

The  practical  conclusion  of  Mallock’s  reasoning  is  reached 
on  page  123 : 

if  once  the  functions  of  the  directive  ability,  of  the  few  are  clearly 
recognized  and  asserted,  and  if  labor  in  the  modern  world  is  exhibited 
as  practically  helpless  without  it,  socialism,  as  an  instrument  of 
popular  agitation,  would  be  paralyzed. 

In  order  to  put  Mallockism  to  real  good  use — indeed,  the 
only  use  it  can  serve  in  popular  enlightenment — that  is,  con¬ 
trast  it  squarely  with  Marxism,  I  think  it  will  be  well  to 
sum  up  Mallock’s  position,  from  his  own  words,  before  pro¬ 
ceeding  to  take  up  Marx. 

Marx,  Mallock  claims,  sees  only  in  manual  labor,  which 
includes  the  individual  skill  of  the  individual  worker,  the 
source  of  all  wealth  and  wealth  production :  Marx  errs :  the 
error  will  be  perceived  by  eomparing  and  contrasting  the  out¬ 
put  of  wealth  in  primitive  soeiety  with  the  output  of  wealth 
in  modern  soeiety ;  in  primitive  society,  where  individual  skill 
was  a  faetor  and  even  to-day,  in  the  production  of  all  articles 
requiring  high  eraftsmanship,  the  output  of  wealth  is  meager : 
in  modern  production,  where,  the  less  the  individual  skill, 
all  the  more  abundant  is  production,  the  output  of  wealth  is 
great:  whenee  the  difference?  The  difference  proceeds  from 
the  circumstance  that,  in  modern  soeiety,  a  special  intellectual 
faculty  is  set  into  operation:  that  faculty  is  ‘^ability,”  “di¬ 
rective  ability” ;  it  is  a  faculty  that  differs,  not  in  degree  but 
in  kind,  from  any  mental  faculty  that  the  manual  workers 
set  in  play :  indeed,  the  manual  workers  lack  that  faculty : 
that  faculty  resides  in  “The  Few,”  in  the  capitalist  class:  it 
is,  thanks  to  the  faculty,  whereby  the  capitalist  can  and  does 
affect  any  number  of  hands  simultaneously,  that  the  output 
of  wealth  is  so  large  in  modern  society :  without  this  quicken¬ 
ing  faculty,  labor  in  the  modern  world  is  practically  help- 


Marx  on  Malloch 


7 


less;  consequently,  Marx  erred  when  he  claimed  that  the 
manual  workers,  and  they  alone,  produced  all  wealth,  and, 
therefore,  that  all  wealth  belonged  to  them :  on  the  contrary, 
seeing  that  the  source  of  the  difference  between  what  labor, 
undirected  by  capitalist  ability,  produces,  and  what  labor, 
directed  by  capitalist  ability,  yields,  it  follows  that  that  dif¬ 
ference  belongs,  scientifically  and  morally,  to  ‘‘The  Few,’’ 
to  the  capitalist  class — thus  sayeth  Mallock. 

With  this  picture  clear  before  our  minds,  we  may  proceed 
to  take  up  Marx — and  the  facts  in  the  case.  Nevertheless, 
before  dropping  this  booklet,  there  is  one  more  passage  from 
it  to  which  I  must  refer.  Clear  though  the  position  of  Mal¬ 
lock  is,  the  passage  I  have  in  mind  will  help  to  make  it  still 
clearer,  and  thereby  offer  an  all-the-clearer  target  for  the 
Socialist’s  answer. 

Mallock  takes  up  in  this  Vlth  Lecture  the  answer  made 
to  him  in  “The  Worker”  of  this  city,  by  Mr.  Morris  Hill- 
quit,  who,  Mallock  says,  he  was  told  was  the  “intellectual 
Ajax”  of  American  Socialists.  The  starting  point,  the  basis 
of  Mallock’s  position  and  reasoning  is,  we  have  seen,  the 
allegation  that  Marx  considers  nothing  but  the  manual  and 
mental  efforts  of  the  individual  manual  laborer.  Mr.  Hill- 
quit’s  refutation  is  attempted  by  quoting  these  words  (page 
120)  of  Marx  himself: 

By  labor  power  or  capacity  for  labor  is  to  be  understood  the  aggre¬ 
gate  of  those  mental  and  physical  capacities  existing  in  a  human 
being  which  he  exercises  whenever  he  produces  a  use- value  of  any 
description. 

The  answer  falls  wide  of  the  mark.  The  mental  faculties, 
referred  to  by  Mallock  as  being  totally  ignored  by  Marx,  are 
not  the  individual  brain-powers  of  the  operatives.  The  pas¬ 
sage  quoted  by  Mr.  Hillquit  refers  to  such  brain-power  only. 
Clear  does  Mallock  make  his  point,  first,  that  such  brain¬ 
power  or  skill,  wherever  needed,  is  rather  a  drawback  to  the 
plentifulness  of  production;  and,  secondly,  that  the  brain¬ 
power  which  he  has  in  mind  consists  in  the  “directing  ability” 


8 


Marx  on  Mallock 


lodged  in  the  capitalist  few,  whereby  the  manual  labor,  to¬ 
gether  with  the  necessarily  accompanying  skill  “of  any  num¬ 
ber  of  other  men,’’  can  be  influenced,  and  whereby  the  ability 
of  the  capitalist  few  is  multiplied  by  the  thousand  hands 
whom  that  ability  directs,  and  thereby  turns  from  sterility 
into  fertility.  Mr.  Hillquit’s  “triumphant  answer”  is  irrele¬ 
vant.  Deservedly  is  it  sneered  at  by  Mallock.  The  only  crit¬ 
icism  to  which  Mallock  is  open  on  this  head,  when  he  charges 
Mr.  Hillquit  with  not  understanding  Marx,  is  that  Mallock’s 
sneers  are  a  case  of  the  pot  calling  the  kettle  black. 

We  now  have  a  clear  target  before  us,  and  may  proceed  to 
take  up  Marx. 

I  have  chosen  deliberately  the  edition  of  Marx’s  “Capital,” 
which  I  here  hold  in  my  hands.  It  is  the  Swan  Sonnen- 
schein  edition,  printed  in  England,  Mallock’s  home.  With 
this  edition  of  “Capital”  I  propose  to  prove  to  you — 

1st. — That  it  is '  a  figment  of  Mallock’s  brain  that  Marx 
saw  only  in  the  labor  of  those  manually  engaged  in  produc¬ 
tion,  the  source  of  modern  wealth ; 

2nd. — That  Marx  perceived,  and  brilliantly  described,  the 
difference  between  the  meager  productivity  of  primitive  and 
the  plentiful  yield  of  modern  labor;  and 

3rd. — That,  with  a  flash  of  his  genius,  Marx  pointed  out 
the  existence  of  the  central  directing  authority  in  the  mod¬ 
ern  ^\x)rld  of  production. 

After  proving,  as  far  as  these  specific  points  are  concerned, 
that  the  Marxian  theory  is  misstated  by  Mallock,  and  that 
Mallock  states  nothing  that  Marx  had  not  stated  before, 
and  elaborated  with  scientific  and  superior  lucidity,  I  shall 
proceed,  “Capital”  in  hand,  to  parallel  and  contrast  Mal¬ 
lock’s  conclusions  with  the  conclusions  arrived  at  by  Marx — 
1st. — The  Mallockian  theory,  defining  the  source  of  the 
“increment”  as  a  quality  of  “The  Few,”  with  the  Marxian 
theory,  which  defines  the  source  of  the  “increment”  as  a 
quality  of  social,  or  collective  power; 


Marx  on  Mallock 


9 


2nd. — The  Mallockian  theory,  which  attributes  to  the  cap¬ 
italist  ^^The  Few”  the  leading  function  in  production,  with 
the  Marxian  theory,  which  attributes  solely  to  the  Working 
Class  (manual  laborers  and  the  supervisors  from  their  own 
class)  the  productive  functions  of  modern  society;  and 

3rd. — The  Mallockian  theory  which,  as  a  consequence  of 
the  theory  concerning  the  leading  function  in  production 
filled  by  ‘^The  Few,’’  raises  the  modern  Capitalist  Class  to 
the  dignity  of  social  benefactors,  with  the  Marxian  theory 
which  lowers  the  Capitalist  Class  to  the  level  of  plundering 
despots. 

The  chapter  from  which  I  shall  now  mainly  quote  is  the 
Xlllth  of  Part  IV.  It  is  entitled  “Co-operation” — the  chap¬ 
ter  to  which  I  referred  at  the  opening  as  being  a  treatise,  the 
study  of  which  is,  in  itself,  a  liberal  education. 

DIRECT  YIELD  OF  MANUAL  LABOR. 

With  this  chapter  on  “Co-operation”  before  me,  I  find 
myself  in  a  positive  emharras  de  richesse — an  embarrassment 
of  wealth  from  which  to  draw.  One  can  hardly  turn  to  a 
page  without  encountering  several  passages  directly  indica¬ 
tive  of  the  fact  that,  in  the  modern  world  of  production — a 
w'orld  of  production  in  which  co-operative  labor  is  a  distinc¬ 
tive  characteristic — the  output  of  wealth  is  vastly  greater 
than  it  was  in  primitive  society,  where  co-operation  was  un¬ 
known,  and,  consequently,  that  output  is  vastly  greater  than 
would  be  the  aggregate  total  of  the  present  individual  manual 
w^orkers.  There  is  another  difficulty  in  the  making  of  a 
selection  of  passages  that  distinctly  point  out  this  fact.  The 
magnificent  procession  of  magnificent  and  pregnant  general¬ 
izations,  deducted  from  the  central  fact  of  the  phenomenal 
fertility  of  co-operative  labor,  contained  in  this  chapter,  so 
dove-tail  into  one-  another,  that  it  is  next  to  impossible  to 
make  any  citation  that  will  fall  exclusively  within  any  of  the 


10 


Marx  on  Mallock 


six  heads  which  I  have  just  enumerated.  Moreover,  seeing 
that  all  the  observations  are  grounded  upon  that  central  phe¬ 
nomenon  of  the  plentiful  yield  of  co-operative  labor,  they  all 
contribute  their  share  to  the  demonstration  of  the  fact  that, 
contrary  to  Mallock’s  claim,  nothing  is  remoter  from  the 
Marxian  theory  than  i-he  error  that  the  output  of  modern 
wealth  is  the  exclusive  yield  of  the  manual  labor  engaged  in 
its  production.  Everyone  who  desires  to  obtain  a  full  grasp 
of  the  point  should  read  and  study  the  whole  chapter.  I 
shall  confine  myself  under  this  particular  head  to  quoting 
just  three  passages  which  will  be  found  ample  for  the  purpose. 

The  first  passage  wfill  be  found  on  page  311; 

Capitalist  production  only  then  really  begins,  as  we  have  already  seen, 
when  each  individual  capital  employs  simultaneously  a  compara¬ 
tively  large  number  of  laborers;  when,  consequently,  the  labor-pro¬ 
cess  is  carried  on  on  an  extensive  scale,  and  yields,  relatively,  large 
quantities  of  products.  A  greater  number  of  laborers  working  to¬ 
gether,  at  the  same  time,  in  one  place  (or,  if  you  will,  in  the  same 
field  of  labor),  in  order  to  produce  the  same  sort  of  commodity  un¬ 
der  the  mastership  of  one  capitalist,  constitutes,  both  historically  and 
logically,  the  starting  point  of  capitalist  production. 

The  second  passage  occurs  on  page  319 : 

The  combined  working  day  produces,  relatively  to  an  equal  sum  of 
isolated  working-days,  a  greater  quantity  of  use-values,  and  conse- 
•quently,  diminishes  the  labor  time  necessary  for  the  production  of  a 
given  useful  effect. 

Finall}^  the  third  is  on  page  315,  running  over  to  page 
316,  and  clinches  the  point  unmistakably; 

Just  as  the  offensive  power  of  a  squadron  of  cavalry,  or  the  de¬ 
fensive  power  of  a  regiment  of  infantry,  is  essentially  different  from 
the  sum  of  the  offensive  or  defensive  powers  of  the  individual  cavalry 
or  infantry  soldiers  taken  separately,  so  the  sum  total  of  the  me¬ 
chanical  forces,  exerted  by  isolated  workmen,  differs  from  the  social 
force  that  is  developed  when  many  hands  take  part  simultaneously 
in  one  and  the  same  undivided  operation,  such  as  raising  a  heavy 
weight,  turning  a  winch,  or  removing  an  obstacle.  In  such  cases  the 
effect  of  the  combined  labor  could  either  not  be  produced  at  all  by 
.isolated  individual  labor,  or  it  could  only  be  produced  by  a  great  ex- 
;penditure  of  time,  or  on  a  very  dwarfed  scale.  Not  only  have  we 
^here  an  increase  in  the  productive  power  of  the  individual,  by  means 


Marx  on  Mallock  11 

of  co-operation,  but  the  creation  of  a  new  power,  namely,  the  collec¬ 
tive  power  of  masses. 

The  point  is  here  expressly  made.  Co-operative  labor, 
‘^historically  and  logically,  the  starting  point  of  capitalist 
production,’’  yields,  “relatively  larger  quantities  of  product” 
than  the  aggregate  total  of  the  individual  manual  workers 
would  amount  to.  The  second  citation  reiterates  the  fact 
concerning  the  “greater  quantity  of  use-values”  produced  by 
the  “combined  working  day,”  when  compared  “to  an  equal 
sum  of  isolated  working  days,”  and  it  explains  the  fact  with 
the  probe  that  the  combined  working  day  “diminishes  the 
labor-time  necessary  for  the  production  of  a  given  useful 
article.”  However  important  the  first  two  citations  are  to 
the  issue,  Mallock  may  still  claim,  however  forced  the  claim, 
that  it  does  not  necessarily  follow,  from  Marx’s  recognition 
of  a  larger  output  of  wealth  as  the  accompanying  phenom¬ 
enon  of  the  simultaneous  operation  of  many  workers  in  one 
industry,  that  Marx  recognizes  the  function  of  an  intelli¬ 
gence,  outside  of  the  men  busy  at  manual  work,  and  neces¬ 
sary  to  the  conjuring  forth  of  the  said  increased  output. 
Mallock  may  still  claim,  however  forced  the  claim,  that  the 
point  he  raises  is  still  left  un-met,  to  wit,  the  existence  of  a 
human  force,  which,  without  itself  operating  its  hands,  is, 
thanks  to  its  mental  activity — Mallock’s  “ability” — essential 
to  the  yield  of  the  said  increased  output.  The  third  quota¬ 
tion,  led  up  to  by  the  tw'o  previous  ones,  clinches  the  point 
The  operation  of  many  men  together,  implies  organization; 
organization  implies  subdivision  of  functions;  subdivision  of 
functions,  together  with  organization,  implies  differentiation 
of  activities.  Marx’s  illustration  is  brilliant.  No  more  than 
the  superior  “offensive  power  of  a  squadron  of  cavalry,”  or 
the  superior  “defensive  power  of  a  regiment  of  infantry,” 
can  be  said  to  flow  exclusively  from  the  troopers  who  wield 
sabres,  or  the  infantrymen  who  carry  rifles — no  more  than 
in  these  instances,  can  it  be  supposed  that  the  larger  output, 


13 


Marx  on  Mallock 


which  accompanies  the  simultaneous  operations  of  many 
w'orkers,  flows  exclusively  from  the  manual  laborers.  Marx’s 
brilliant  simile^  contained  in  the  last  citation,  to  which  I 
shall  have  occasion  again  to  refer  upon  a  subsequent  head, 
at  once  removes  the  bottom  from  under  Mallock’s  claim  that 
]\rarx  attributes  to  direct  manual  labor  the  only  source  of 
all  wealth,  and  also  eclipses  Mallock’s  necessarily  clumsy 
presentation  of  the  subject  of  the  larger  output  of  wealth  in 
modern  society.  Why  Mallock’s  presentation  was  necessarily 
clumsy  will  appear  presently. 

DIRECTING  ^^ABILITY”— 'WTHORITY.” 

It  should  not  be  necessary,  after  the  analysis  I  have  just 
presented,  to  prove  that  Mallock  erred  when  he  claims  that 
Marx  fails  to  perceive,  not  the  function  merely,  but  even  the 
existence  of  a  directing  power  in  modern  production.  The 
squadron  of  cavalry,  or  the  regiment  of  infantry  can  not 
ckoose  but  be  under  direction.  Neither,  of  course,  could  the 
squadron,  or  regiment,  of  co-operating  manual  workers.  But, 
as  I  said  in  opening,  the  refutation  of  Mallock  is  only  an  in¬ 
cident  in  this  address,  the  real  object  of  which  is  to  unroll 
Marx  to  your  view.  Accordingly,  under  this  second  head,  I 
shall  cite  the  second  scientific  generalization  of  Marx’s  on 
the  subject  of  co-operation.  The  passage  occurs  on  page  331 : 

All  combined  labor  on  a  large  scale  requires,  more  or  less,  a  di¬ 
recting  authority,  in  order  to  secure  the  harmonious  working  of  the 
individual  activities,  and  to  perform  the  general  functions  that  have 
their  origin  in  the  action  of  the  combined  organism,  as  distinguished 
from  the  action  of  its  separate  organs.  A  single  violin  player  is  his 
own  conductor;  an  orchestra  requires  a  separate  one. 

How  trifling,  mean  and  puny,  when  contrasted  with  this 
passage,  does  not  Mallock’s  argument  appear  concerning  the 
existence  of  the  directing  power  in  the  world  of  production ! 
Mallock  states  a  fact,  the  philosopher  and  scientist  Marx  not 
only  pithily  stated  the  identical  fact  before,  but,  in  stating 


Mccrx  on  Mallock 


13 


it,  traced  the  fact  to  its  cause,  and  thereby  laid  the  founda¬ 
tion  that  guards  against  error  in  following  the  fact  to  its 
effects — as  will  presently  appear  more  clearly. 

The  harmoniously  blended  melody  of  many  individual  in¬ 
struments  is  in  the  nature  of  the  increased  output  in  modern 
production.  To  the  production  of  that  harmoniously  blended 
melody  the  orchestra  director  is  indispensable:  indispensable 
likewise,  for  identical  reason,  is  the  director  in  the  orchestra 
of  production,  declares  Marxian  science. 

Having  proved  Mallock’s  misstatements  of  Marx,  I  shall 
now,  agreeable  to  promise,  proceed  to  contrast  by  parallelling 
the  divergent  conclusions  arrived  at  by  each.  The  first  of 
these  conclusions  is  upon 

THE  SOUECE  OF  THE  ^TNCREMENT.” 

According  to  Mallock,  the  source  of  the  ‘increment” — the 
excess  of  output,  when  the  laborers  are  working  in  '^‘orches¬ 
tra,’^  over  the  output,  when  each  laborer  is  his  own  “direc¬ 
tor” — is  an  attribute  of  “The  Few.”  According  to  Mallock 
it  is  a  quality  that  resides  in  “The  Few”  only.  Male  and 
female  creation  are  both  necessary  for  procreation.  Between 
the  male  and  the  female,  a  sort  of  co-operation  may  be  said 
to  take  place.  According  to  Mallock,  the  quality,  which  pro¬ 
duces  the  increased  output,  partakes  of  the  nature  of  male  or 
female  creation  only  in  as  much  as  that  quality  resides  ex¬ 
clusively  in  the  one  or  the  other  of  the  parties  to  production ; 
but,  according  to  Mallock,  the  human  vessel  that  is  the  depos¬ 
itory  of  the  output-increasing  quality  has  nothing  in  common 
with  the  w'orkers’  hands  which  it  directs,  it  has  not  even  that 
in  common  with  them  that  the  male,  or  the  female,  has,  the 
one  with  the  other.  In  short,  according  to  Mallock  “The 
Few”  are,  by  virtue  of  their  quality,  what  a  male  would  be 
that  needed  not  the  female  for  procreation — independent. 

Marxian  theory  on  the  source  of  the  “increment”  is  radi¬ 
cally  different.  It  may  be  given  in  the  following  two  pas- 


14 


Mdrx  on  Mallock 


sages,  the  first  from  page  316: 

Not  only  have  we  here  an  increase  in  the  productive  power  of  the 
individual,  by  means  of  co-operation,  but  the  creation  of  a  new  power, 
THE  COLLECTIVE  POWER  OF  MASSES. 

This  passage  is  the  closing  clause  of  one  that  I  have  cited 
before;  the  second  passage  will  be  found  at  the  bottom  of 
page  319 : 

When  the  laborer  co-operates  systematically  with  others,  he  strips 
off  the  fetters  of  his  individualism,  and  develops  the  capabilities  of 
his  species. 

In  other  words,  differently  from  Mallock,  Marx  locates  the 
“incremenf’-producing  quality  not  in  ‘‘The  Few,”  but  in 
the  many.  He  defines  that  quality  as  a  “social  power,”  a 
“collective  power,”  that  resides  in  the  manual  workers  and 
their  director,  collectively — in  the  Working  Class.  Particu¬ 
larly  pregnant  is  the  second  passage.  It  enunciates  a  prin¬ 
ciple  not  of  economics  only  but  of  sociology  also ; — a  principle 
that  incidentally  knocks  the  bottom  from  under  the  high- 
sounding  pretensions  of  the  “Individualists”  of  all  shades, 
from  the  “rose-water”  to  the  “bomb-throwing”  variety; — the 
principle  that  “individualism”  fetters  the  individual,  while 
freedom  awaits  him  only  when,  stripped  of  those  fetters,  he 
develops  the  capabilities  of  his  species.  Man  is  the  slave  of 
Nature,  a  toy  of  her  caprices,  so  long  as  the  output  of  wealth 
is  so  meager  that  it  keeps  him  with  his  nose  to  the  grindstone 
of  toil.  Freedom  comes  only  in  the  measure  that  the  yield 
of  his  labor  frees  man  from  want,  from  the  fear  of  want,  and 
from  the  necessity  of  arduous  toil  to  satisfy  his  physical  ne¬ 
cessities.  So  long  as  he  labors  individually,  he  is  fettered — 
the  yield  of  his  labor  cannot  afford  him  freedom.  The  con¬ 
dition  for  freedom — an  ample  supply  of  wealth — depends 
upon  co-operative  labor.  Profound,  accordingly,  is  the  phil¬ 
osophy  that  recognizes  that  only  in  co-operation — the  status 
where  man  merges  his  individualism  with  man — does  he  de¬ 
velop  the  capabilities  of  his  species — the  capabilities  for  free¬ 
dom. 


Marx  on  Malloch 


15 


I  shall  leave  for  later  the  demonstration  of  the  correctness 
of  the  Marxian  and  the  error  of  the  Mallockian  theory.  Con¬ 
fining  myself  here  to  contrasting  the  two,  this  may  be  said 
upon  this  head: 

The  theory  of  the  fertility  of  co-operation  is  but  an  amplifi¬ 
cation,  on  the  domain  of  sociology,  of  a  principle  that  is  well 
known  in  mechanios.  A  cable  is  twisted  out  of  a  large  num¬ 
ber  of  separate  threads  that  are  individually  of  slight  strength ; 
but  the  strength  of  the  cable  is  not  equal  merely  to  the  sum 
of  the  strength  of  all  the  threads  out  of  which  it  is  made.  It 
is  equal  to  the  sum  of  the  strength  of  all  those  separate 
threads,  plus  an  added  strength  that  is  born  of  their  being 
twisted  into  one  rope.  According  to  Mallock,  the  director, 
whose  quality  twists  the  cable  of  production  out  of  the  mul¬ 
tiple  manual  w'orkers,  stands  to  the  twisted  cable  of  modem 
production  in  the  identical  relation  that  the  ropemaker,  whose 
quality  twists  the  rope,  stands  to  the  rope  itself — the  relation 
of  human  master  to  inanimate  thing.  According  to  ]\Iarx, 
on  the  contrary,  the  directing  force  that  twists  the  cable  of 
production  out  of  the  multiple  individual  workers,  is  flesh  of 
their  flesh;  bone  of  their  bone;  differentiated  organs  of  a 
social  power  whose  joint  efforts  produce  the  results  that  en¬ 
able  man  to  enjoy  the  fruits  of  having  stripped  himself  of  the 
fetters  of  his  individualism,  and  developed  the  capabilities  ot 
his  species — freedom  from  animal  want. 

The  contrast  being  established  between  Marx  and  Mallock 
on  the  source  of  the  ‘increment,”  obvious,  in  advance,  is  the 
conclusion  that  each  arrives  at  on  the  subject  of 

THE  PKODUCER  OF  THE  INCREMENT. 

Mallock,  as  w'e  have  seen,  makes  the  capitalist  the  sole 
depository  of  the  quality  that  yields  the  'increment.’'  As  a 
consequence,  the  depository  is  also  the  ‘increment’’  pro¬ 
ducer. 


16 


Marx  on  Mallock 


As  against  this  theory  I  shall  quote  two  passages  from 
Marx,  The  first  is  an  allegation  of  the  economic  facts  in 
the  case.  It  is  found  on  page  322 : 

Just  as  at  first  the  capitalist  is  relieved  from  actual  labor  so  soon  as 
his  capital  has  reached  that  minimum  amount  with  which  capitalist 
production,  as  such,  begins,  so  now,  he  hands  over  the  work  of  direct 
and  constant  supervision  of  the  individual  workmen,  and  groups  of 
workmen,  to  A  SPECIAL  KIND  OF  WAGE  LABORER.  An  in¬ 
dustrial  army  of  workmen,  under  the  command  of  a  capitalist,  re¬ 
quires,  like  a  real  army,  officers  (managers),  and  sergeants  (fore¬ 
men  overlookers),  who,  while  the  work  is  being  done,  command  in 
the  name  of  the  capitalist.  THE  WORK  OF  SUPERVISION  BE¬ 
COMES  THEIR  ESTABLISHED  AND  EXCLUSIVE  FUNCTION. 

Is  the  allegation  false?  is  it  true?  We  shall  see  when  we 
come  to  the  proof.  Suffice  it  here  to  record  Marx’s  state¬ 
ment  that,  in  the  course  of  capitalist  development  a  ‘^special 
kind  of  wage  laborer”  is  generated — the  workingman,  the 
ability  of  whom  is  the  “'filirecting  ability”  which  co-operative 
labor  demands,  and  is  alone  exercised.  If  this  allegation  is 
true,  then  it  is  the  Working  Class — some  as  manual  workers, 
others  as  directors,  but  all  of  the  Working  Class — whose  co¬ 
operative  labor  brings  forth  the  increment.  What  function 
would  then  be  left  to  the  capitalist  few  ?  Is  their  title  “^^Captains 
of  Industry”  an  arrogation?  We  shall  see  under  the  next 
head.  In  the  meantime  and  under  the  present  head  the  fol¬ 
lowing  third  generalization — a  gem  of  philosophy  of  history — 
will  illumine  the  field.  It  is  taken  from  page  323 : 

It  is  not  because  he  is  a  leader  of  industry  that  a  man  is  a  capitalist, 
he  is  a  leader  of  industry  because  he  is  a  capitalist.  The  leadership  of 
industry  is  an  attribute  of  capital,  just  as  in  feudal  times  the  func¬ 
tions  of  general  and  judge  were  attributes  of  landed  property. 

On  the  benches  of  the  schools  we  are  warned  and  taught 
not  to  confound  cause  with  effect.  According  to  Mallock 
“The  Few”  start  with  a  certain  God-given  quality — “ability” 
■ — ^by  virtue  of  which  they  acquire  the  substance — “capital.” 
According  to  Marx,  the  process  is  in  the  inverse  order,  and 
he  backs  up  his  view  with  a  historic  generalization  that  is 
luminous:  according  to  him  “The  Few”  start  with  capital. 


Marx  on  Malloch 


17 


and  by  virtue  of  that^  and  as  an  attribute  of  that,  they  figure 
as  “leaders  of  industry,'^  or  “ability’’  displayers,  as  Mallock 
expresses  it.  How  important  it  is  to  determine  whether 
“leadership  in  industry”  is  the  cause  of  the  “ownership  of 
capital,”  or  whether,  inversely,  the  “ownership  of  capital”  is 
the  cause  of  “leadership  in  industry,”  meaning  thereby  the 
“ability”  of  “The  Few” — in  short,  how  important  it  is  to  be 
clear  upon  what  is  cause  and  what  is  effect,  a  scene  that  is 
taking  place  at  this  very  time  in  the  Tombs  Criminal  Court 
of  this  city  illustrates  aptly. 

Harry  Kendall  Thaw  is  on  trial  for  the  murder  of  the 
architect  White.  The  letters  of  Thaw’s  mother,  his  nurses, 
his  doctors  from  far  and  wide,  his  “cousins,  his  sisters  and 
his  aunts”  are  all  thronging  to  the  witness-stand  to  prove  the 
man  insane.  Now  it  happens  that  Thaw  is  a  capitalist.  Tested 
by  all  the  tests  furnished  by  Mallock — seeing  that  Thaw  is  in 
possession  of  his  ample  share  of  the  “increment,”  which,  ac¬ 
cording  to  Mallock,  flows  only  from,  is  found  in  the  posses¬ 
sion  of,  and  justly  belongs  to  “ability”  only — -Thaw  is  of  the 
fraternity  of  “The  Few.”  Now  the  question  comes,  Is  Thaw 
a  capitalist  because  he  is  insane,  or  is  he  insane  because  he  is 
a  capitalist?  If  Mallock  is  right,  the  conclusion  could  not 
be  escaped  that  Thaw’s  insanity  is  the  fertile  source  of  the 
“increment”  which  he  enjoys;  if  Marx  is  right  the  conclu¬ 
sion  would  be  that  Thaw’s  ownership  of  capital  is  the  cause 
of  his  insanit}" — an  affliction  that  it  would  scorn  hard  to 
escape  by  anyone  who  leads  a  capitalist’s  life,  the  life  of 
preaching  “Christian  Brotherhood”  and  practicing  the  moral¬ 
ity  of  the  jungle;  of  preaching  “family  purity”  and  prac¬ 
ticing  debauchery  of  preaching  “industry”  and  setting  the 
example  of  idleness ;  of  preaching  “common  sense,”  and  pur¬ 
suing  that  wildest  of  Utopianisms,  which  consists  in  imagin¬ 
ing  that  a  social  system,  which  corrodes  its  own  foundations, 
can  be  stable  and  lasting;  which  preaches  “enlightenment” 
and  is  intent  upon  fastening  mediaeval  ignorance  upon  the 


Marx  on  Malloch 


18 
k 

masses.  But  I  am  anticipating.  To  return  to  the  subject. 

There  remains  one  more  contrast  to  establish  between  Marx 
and  Mallock.  It  is  the  contrast  between  their  opposing  views 
concerning 

THE  FUNCTION  OF  ‘^THE  FEW.” 

Mallock;,  we  have  seen,  imputes  to  ^^The  Few”  the  function 
of  ^Mirecting”  labor  in  the  modern  world  of  production. 
Mallock’s  position  is  the  legitimate  consequence  of  his  prem¬ 
ises.  ‘^The  Few”  being  the  sole  depositories  of  the  ‘‘ability” 
requisite  to  bring  forth  the  “increment,”  their  function  in 
society  is  to  exercise  their  “ability,”  to  which  exercise  the 
“increment”  is  due,  and  to  which  “increment”  are  due  the 
blessings  of  affluence.  In  other  words,  according  to  Mallock, 
the  function  of  “The  Few”  is  the  important  function  of  cap¬ 
taining  industry.  Marx,  we  have  seen,  proceeds  from  the  prin¬ 
ciple  that  the  “increment,”  as  Mallock  calls  it,  so  far  from 
being  the  result  of  a  quality  residing  in  a  Few,  is  a  quality 
residing  in  the  collectivity,  a  social  power.  And  we  saw  him, 
after  illumining  his  contention  with  the  illustrations  of  the 
squadron  of  cavalry,  and  the  regiment  of  infantry,  and  after 
further  demonstrating,  with  the  illustration  of  the  orchestra 
director,  the  inevitableness  of  a  central  directing  authority — 
after  that,  we  saw  Marx  allege  the  fact  that  the  important 
function  of  supervision,  direction,  etc.,  is  exercised  by  a  “spe¬ 
cial  kind  of  wage  laborer.”  In  short,  the  function  of  direc¬ 
tion,  of  captaining  industry,  according  to  Marx,  is  not  a 
function  filled  by  Mallock’s  “The  Few,”  but  a  function  filled 
by  a  differentiated  portion  of  the  Working  Class  itself. 

The  question,  now  suggesting  itself  and  demanding  an  an¬ 
swer,  is  a  question  I  have  dropped  before  in  the  course  of  this 
address  have,  then,  “The  Few,”  the  capitalists,  no  function 
whatever  in  present  society,  according  to  Marx?  We  have 
seen  him  deny  with  allegations  of  fact  that  “The  Few”  cap- 


Marx  on  Malloch 


19 


tain  industry,  the  one  function  imputed  to  them  by  Mallock. 
Are,  then,  “The  Few^’  denied  by  Marx  all  social  function  in 
present  society?  Far  from  it;  and  important  it  is  to  under¬ 
stand  clearly  what  that  function  really  is. 

Upon  this  head  I  shall  quote  four  passages  from  this  chap¬ 
ter.  The  first  three  occur  successively  on  page  321 ;  they  are 
as  follows : 

The  work  of  directing,  superintending  and  adjusting,  becomes  one 
of  the  functions  of  capital,  from  the  moment  that  labor,  under  the 
control  of  capital,  becomes  co-operative. 

This  sentence  answers  the  first  part  of  the  question — the 
work  of  superintending,  directing,  adjusting  becomes  one  of 
the  functions  of  capital  from  the  moment  labor  becomes  co¬ 
operative  in  the  course  of  social  evolution.  The  answer  may 
seem  a  contradiction  to  the  passage,  quoted  before,  and  which 
imputes  to  workingmen,  to  “a  special  kind  of  wage  laborer,” 
and  not  to  ^“^The  Few,”  the  function  of  directing,  superin¬ 
tending  and  adjusting.  It  is  no  contradiction,  as  we  shall 
presently  see.  In  fact,  as  w^e  shall  presently  see,  the  seeming 
contradiction  leads  to  a  question,  the  answer  to  which  is  of 
no  little  moment  to  the  understanding  of  the  situation.  But, 
not  to  anticipate — 

Marx  then  proceeds : 

Once  a  function  of  capital,  it  [the  work  of  directing,  superintending, 
and  adjusting]  acquires  special  characteristics. 

What  are  these  special  characteristics?  Marx  immediately 
proceeds  to  define  them : 

The  directing  motive,  the  end  and  aim  of  capitalist  production, 
is  to  extract  the  greatest  possible  amount  of  surplus-value,  and  con¬ 
sequently  to  exploit  labor-power  to  the  greatest  possible  extent.  As 
the  number  of  the  co-operating  laborers  increases,  so  too  does  their 
resistance  to  the  domination  of  capital,  and  with  it,  the  necessity  for 
capital  to  overcome  this  resistance  by  counter-pressure.  The  con¬ 
trol  exercised  by  the  capitalist  is  not  only  a  special  function,  due  to 
the  nature  of  the  social  labor-process,  and  peculiar  to  that  process, 
but  it  is,  at  the  same  time,  a  function  of  the  exploitation  of  a  social 
labor-process,  and  is  consequently  rooted  in  the  unavoidable  antagon¬ 
ism  between  the  exploiter  and  the  living  and  laboring  raw  material 
he  exploits. 


20 


Marx  on  Mallock 


We  begin  to  perceive  the  nature  of  the  special  character¬ 
istics  of  the  functions  of  ‘‘The  Few/’  Finally,  the  following 
passage  from  page  322,  closely  following,  intimately  con¬ 
nected  with,  and  climaxing  the  three  I  just  read,  completes 
the  reasoning  and  rounds  up  the  answer.  Marx  says: 

If,  tHen,  the  control  of  the  capitalist  is  in  substance  twofold  by 
reason  of  the  twofold  nature  of  the  process  of  production  itself— 
which,  on  the  one  hand,  is  a  social  process  for  producing  use-values, 
on  the  other,  a  process  for  creating  surplus-value — in  form  that  con¬ 
trol  is  despotic.  As  co-operation  extends  its  scale,  this  despotism 
takes  forms  peculiar  to  itself. 

To  sum  up  these  four  citations — According  to  Marx,  the 
capitalist  steps  upon  the  stage  of  history  equipped  with  cap¬ 
ital.  Of  course,  the  thought  arises.  How  did  he  get  it?  It 
is  an  important  thought,  so  important  that  I  shall  not  close 
without  meeting  it.  For  the  present,  and  summing  up  Marx, 
it  is  enough  to  say  that,  according  to  Marx,  the  capitalist 
turns  up  historically  in  possession  of  capital.  He  did  not 
acquire  its  possession  “for  his  health.”  He  acquired  it  be¬ 
cause  he  realized  he  needed  the  same  to  satisfy  the  cravings 
of  his  previous  petit  bourgeois  heart — more  wealth.  His 
capital,  such  as  it  then  was,  invested  him  with  the  attribute 
of  “Captain  of  Industry,”  .aim  he  started  exercising  that 
function — a  new  function  to  him.  Once  he  assumed  the 
function,  the  function  began  to  acquire  special  characteris¬ 
tics.  The  special  characteristics  which  the  new  function  ac¬ 
quired  were  the  result  of  troubles  which  the  incipient  capi¬ 
talist  did  not  bargain  for,  but  which  he  could  not  avoid  or 
evade,  and  were  inherent  in  the  process  in  which  he  was  a 
leading  actor.  More  wealth  is  what  he  was  after,  not  for  the 
sake  of  wealth,  but  for  the  sake  of  increasing  his  capital, 
whereby  to  increase  his  riches.  The  capitalist  was  propelled 
by  the  motive  of  extracting  “the  greatest  possible  amount  of 
surplus-value  ’  from  the  employees  whom  he  directed.  Sur¬ 
plus-value  is  what  Mallock  calls  “increment.”  Marx  calls  it 
unpaid  wages” — wealth  (use-values)  produced  by  the  work- 


Marx  on  Mallock 


21 


ers,  but  appropriated  by  the  capitalist,  and  turned  into  sur¬ 
plus-values  for  himself.  Accordingly,  acting  obedient  to  the 
social  law  that  drives  him,  the  capitalist  was  driven  to  in' 
creasing,  and  ever  increasing,  exploitation— the  exploitation 
of  whom?  Of  his  workingmen.  As  the  area  of  the  exploita. 
tion  widened,  that  is  to  say,  in  the  measure  that  more  and 
more  workingmen  came  under  his  control,  the  social  troubles 
of  the  capitalist  increased — resistance  to  his  exploitation  on 
the  part  of  his  wage-earners.  From  that  instant  the  one¬ 
time  single  function  of  the  capitalist  began  to  be  differen¬ 
tiated  into  two  distinct  functions — first,  the  pristine  func¬ 
tion  of  increasing  the  output  of  use-values,  that  is  wealth; 
second,  the  new  function  of  overcoming  the  resistance  of  his 
employees.  From  that  moment  a  further  process  began  to 
take  place — more  and  more  did  the  capitalist  withdraw  from 
active  ‘‘direction,  adjusting  and  supervising” ;  “a  special 
kind  of  wage-laborer”  simultaneously  sprang  into  existence — 
w'orkingmen^  to  whom  the  work  of  supervision  was  trans¬ 
ferred,  and  with  whom,  thenceforth  that  work  became  the 
established  and  exclusive  function.  The  revolutionary  proc¬ 
ess  having  freed,  or  stripped  “The  Few”  of  the  function  of 
direction,  the  only  function  that  remained  to  them  was  the 
function  of  overcoming  the  resistance  of  their  employees  by 
counter-pressure.  That  function  necessarily  was  despotic;  in 
the  language  of  Marx,  “as  co-operation  extended  its  scale, 
that  despotism  took  forms  peculiar  to  itself.”  The  details 
and  corroboration  of  these  “peculiarities”  need  not  here  to  be 
enumerated. 

The  Marxian  theory,  accordingly,  contrasts  sharply  with 
the  Mallockian.  The  latter,  by  imputing  to  the  capitalist 
only  a  beneficent  social  function,  presents  him  as  a  bene¬ 
factor  of  his  kind,  and  entitled  to  the  wealth  that  he  pockets ; 
the  former,  by  denying  to  the  capitalist  all  beneficent  social 
function  and  imputing  to  him  only  the  functions  of  despot¬ 
ism,  presents  him  as  a  harmful  social  barnacle,  who  plunders 


22 


Marx  on  Mallock 


the  Working  Class  of  the  wealth  they  alone  produce,  and  are 
alone  entitled  to,  and  who,  in  order  to  effect  the  plunder  must 
exercise  the  functions  of  a  despot. 

I  need  spend  no  time  to  prove  that  Mallock  erred  in  his 
allegations  of  fact  against  Marx.  Marxian  theory  does  not 
attribute  the  great  output  of  modern  wealth  exclusively  to 
the  manual  laborer.  Marxian  theory  does  not  ignore  the 
important  function  of  direction  and  supervision.  These  are 
matters  of  fact  that  the  passages  which  I  cited  settle.  What 
does  remain  to  be  proved  is  the  incorrectness  of  Mallock’s 
and  the  correctness  of  Marx’s  deduction — the  incorrectness 
of  the  deduction  of  Mallock  that  the  “^‘increment”  is  due  to 
the  ^‘directive  ability”  of  ^‘The  Few,”  as  Mallock  calls  the 
Capitalist  Class,  and  that,  therefore,  to  them  only  that  ‘in¬ 
crement”  rightly  belongs;  and  the  correctness  of  the  deduc¬ 
tion  of  Marx  that  the  “increment”  is  due  to  the  co-operative 
labor  of  the  Working  Class;  that  the  Capitalist  Class,  as 
Marx  calls  Mallock’s  “The  Few,”  is  an  idle  class  in  produc¬ 
tion,  and,  consequently,  that  the  “increment”  rightly  belongs 
only  to  the  Working  Class.  Even  this  it  should  be  super¬ 
fluous  to  prove.  The  proofs  come  daily  crushing  down  over 
the  heads  of  the  Mallocks.  They  have  become  the  daily  ex¬ 
periences  of  the  age.  Nevertheless,  I  shall  cite  one  event  in 
proof — a  typical  one  because  it  is  connected  with  a  human 
tragedy,  and  the  complete  Socialist  position  received  high 
judicial  vindication.  The  further  reason  I  have  for  choosing 
this  particular  event  is  that  the  prominent  magistrate,  who 
figured  in  the  affair,  was  a  pronounced  Socialist -hater ;  a 
typical  upholder  of  the  Capitalist  Class;  a  denouncer  of 
Socialism  as  a  “threat  to  the  sanctity  of  womanhood  and  the 
family,”  while,  himself,  he  cast  off  a  worthy  wife,  went  to 
New  Jersey  and  married  another  woman;  a  front-pew-holding 
assailer  of  “Socialist  un-Godliness” ; — in  short,  a  most  “un¬ 
willing  witness”  by  all  the  canons  of  the  laws  of  evidence.  He 
was  Judge  Van  Brunt,  a  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of 


Marx  on  Malloch 


23 


this  State.  The  event  was  the  following: 

It  was  sixteen  or  seventeen  years  ago.  One  of  those  acci¬ 
dents  for  which  the  New  York  Central  Tunnel  has  become 
notorious  happened  there.  In  that  ‘''Black  Hole  of  Calcutta’’ 
a  collision  took  place  causing  the  death  of  nearly  a  score  of 
human  beings.  When  the  Coroner  came  to  the  spot  the  dis¬ 
covery  was  made  that  the  deaths  did  not  occur  through  the 
smash-up,  as  was  supposed.  It  was  discovered  that  the  pas¬ 
sengers  died  by  being  burned  to  death,  or  smothered  to  death 
in  the  smoke.  In  the  collision,  the  stoves,  used  for  heating 
the  cars,  were  upturned;  that  set  the  cars  on  fire;  and  the 
people  who  could  not  escape  were  consumed  by  the  flames,  or 
asphyxiated  in  the  smoke.  By  the  laws  of  this  State  it  is  a 
penal  offence  to  heat  cars,  on  lines  of  more  than  twenty  miles, 
I  think,  with  stoves.  The  statute  is  intended  to  avoid  just 
such  an  accident  as  happened  in  the  Tunnel.  Seeing  that  the 
New  York,  New  Haven  and  Hartford  road,  which  was  the 
road  on  the  cars  of  which  the  catastrophe  occurred,  is  vastly 
longer  than  twenty  miles,  or  so,  the  road  was  guilty  of  a 
violation  of  the  statute;  in  vieAv,  moreover,  of  the  homicidal 
consequences  of  the  violation,  the  Directors  of  the  road  were 
indicted  for  manslaughter.  Many,  if  not  most,  of  the  Di¬ 
rectors  of  the  New  York  Central  road  being  also  directors  of 
the  New  York,  New  Haven  and  Hartford  concern,  the  whole 
batch,  Chauncey  M.  Depew  among  the  lot,  were  arraigned  at 
the  bar  of  justice.  There  they  stood,  beautiful  to  contem¬ 
plate — these  gentlemen  of  "directing  ability.”  They  pleaded 
not  guilty — on  what  ground?  On  the  ground  that  they  did 
not  hnoiv  that  their  cars  were  heated  with  stoves.  This  should 
be  proof  enough.  But  the  proof  in  this  instance  does  not 
merely  "fill  the  dry  measure.”  It  runs  over.  At  this  point 
Judge  Van  Brunt  steps  upon  the  scene.  The  pleadings, 
backward  and  forward,  in  the  case  were  long-drawn.  The- 
capitalistic  lawyers  of  the  precious  "The  Few”  do  not  object 
to  milking  a  sister  capitalist  cow,  with  the  law’s  delays,  when 


24 


Marx  on  MallocJc 


they  get  hold  of  her  teats.  I  shall  not,  I  do  not  need  to  give 
the  full  details  of  the  extensive  proceedings.  The  curious 
may  hunt  them  up  for  themselves.  I  shall  here  give  the  gist 
of  the  affair.  The  Directors  having  pleaded  not  guilty  on 
the  ground  that  they  did  not  know  that  their  cars  were  heated 
with  stoves,  Judge  Van  Brunt  in  due  time  quashed  the  in¬ 
dictment,  upon  their  own  motion,  laying  down  the  correct 
principle  that  manslaughter,  like  any  other  crime,  can  attach 
only  where  knowledge  is  proven  of  a  violation  of  the  law. 
Seeing  the  Directors  had  no  knowledge  thereof,  they  were 
guiltless,  spotless  as  pascal  lambs,  whereas  the  guilty  parties 
were  those  who  knew  of  the  violation  of  the  law — in  other 
words,  the  guilty  parties  were— who?  The  conductors,  the 
breakmen,  the  engineers,  the  firemen,  the  stationmaster,  etc., 
etc.  They  were  the  guilty  ones,  because  it  was  they  who  ran 
the  trains.  This  is  a  crushing  proof  at  once  of  the  falsity  of 
Mallock’s  nursery  tale  about  the  directing  functions  exer¬ 
cised  by  ^The  Few”  in  the  modern  world  of  labor,  and  of  the 
correctness  of  the  Marxian  principle.  We  have  all  been  re¬ 
cently  made  familiar  with  the  term  '‘Dummy  Directors”  that 
sprang  up  during  the  investigations  of  the  insurance  frauds. 
But  why  multiply  examples,  the  very  capitalist  papers  that 
are  being  printed  to-night,  while  I  am  speaking,  will  furnish 
you  to-morrow  morning  with  fresh  proofs.*  Everybody  knows; 
he  sees  the  evidence  of  it  on  all  sides— from  top  to  bottom  all 
the  industries  of  the  land  are  operated  by  the  Working  Class. 
The  superfluousness  of  Malloek’s  "The  Few”  is  brought  home 
to  all  who  care  to  think  every  time  a  member  of  "The  Few” 
is  gathered  unto  the  bosom  of  Abraham.  Numerous  though  the 

•  Since  the  delivery  of  this  address  a  curious  corroborative  proof  of 
the  principle  above  stated  tell  into  the  lecturer’s  hands.  It  is  a  neatly 
printed  22-page  pamphlet  entitled :  “Recommendations  of  the  Superin¬ 
tendent  of  Banks,  Nevr  York  State.  In  his  Official  Report,  Transmitted 
to  the  Legislature,  January  1,  1908.”  On  the  4th  page  of  this  report 
after  referring  to  the  recent  panic-producing  failures  the  lists  of 
"corporate  abuse  principally  contributing”  thereto  is  recited  On  the 
list  stands  this  entry  :  "Inattention  to,  and  disregard  of  duties  of  di¬ 
rectors.”  The  pamphlet  bristles  with  evidences  of  the  “directing  ability” 
of  “The  Few.” 


Marx  on  MallocTc 


25 


industries  be  and  are  which  their  ^^ability”  “^^directs/’  their 
death  in  nowise  seems  to  aifeet  the  run  of  things.  Indeed, 
the  whole  Capitalist  Class  might  die  to-night,  and  not  a 
wheel  would  stop  revolving  to-morrow;  not  an  industry 
would  be  paralyzed.  The  only  difference — a  great  difference, 
indeed — a  difference  that  clinches  the  point — would  be  that 
the  Working  Class  of  the  land,  finding  themselves,  not  merely 
in  control  (they  are  that  now)  but  in  possession  also  (the 
Capitalist  Class  owners  having  vanished),  production  would 
be  forthwith  freed  from  the  capitalist  dead-man’s  hand  that 
now  weighs  upon  it ;  wealth,  being  no  longer  produced  for  the 
capitalist  purpose  of  sale,  where  prices  are  ruled  by  the  sup¬ 
ply,  but  being  thenceforth  produced  for  use — the  use  of  the 
producers — its  output  would  leap  upwards  with  such  bounds 
and  leaps  that  the  social  blot  of  involuntary  poverty  would 
be  wiped  out — with  all  that  that  implies. 

It  happens,  with  this  matter  of  capitalist  ‘^directing,”  what 
happens  with  taxation.  The  apostles  of  capitalism  blow  hot 
and  cold,  according  as  their  interests  dictate.  One  day,  when 
workingmen  bestir  themselves  to  set  up  their  own  political 
party  and  run  the  Government,  the  spokesmen  of  ‘‘The 
Tew”  step  forward  with  the  denunciatory  objection:  “How 
dare  5"ou  presume  to  run  the  Government!  You  do  not  pay 
the  taxes  I  It  is  we,  the  taxpayers,  who  alone  have  the  right 
to  govern.”  The  next  day,  when  these  same  capitalists  ob¬ 
ject  to  a  tax,  and  seek  its  repeal,  they  appear  before  the  self 
same  workingmen  in  the  garb  of  saving  angels  and  address 
to  them  this  language:  “Dear  workingmen,  you  are  bent 
down  with  taxes !  We  come  to  your  help !  Fall  in  line  kp. 
hind  us !  We  will  relieve  your  burden !”  Exactly  so  in  the 
matter  of  “directing.”  One  day  the  Matlocks  soberly  de¬ 
clare,  amid  the  plaudits  of  the  “The  Few,”  that  they  are  the 
directors  of  production  and  well-spring  of  wealth ;  the  next 
da}^,  when  arraigned  under  an  indictment  in  Court  for  hav¬ 
ing  misdirected,  the  hour  of  danger  wrings  from  their  breasts 


S6 


Marx  on  Mallock 


the  truth,  that  they  do  not  direct,  and  their  own  magistrates 
place  the  official  seal  of  approbation  upon  the  plea,  echoing: 
“Not  they  are  guilty,  because  not  they  direct;  the  guilty  are 
the  actual  directors — the  workingmen  who  run  the  concern !” 

There  now  remain  only  two  knots  to  tie.  I  am  now  ready 
to  tie  them.  I  hope  you  are  also  ready.  I  hope  so  because 
I  hope  you  have  followed  me  closely  enough  to  now  have  two 
questions  uppermost  on  your  minds  the  consideration  of  which 
will  be  necessary  to  round  up  the  subject. 

The  first  of  the  two  questions  that  I  expect  you  to  have 
in  mind  is  this: 

“No  doubt  Mallock  misstates  Marx:  no  doubt  Marx  rec¬ 
ognizes  the  need  and  the  existence  of  a  directing  intelligence, 
outside  of  the  intelligence  directly  exercised  by  the  manual 
worker  in  modern  production.  No  doubt  also  Marx’s  posi¬ 
tion  is  sound,  Mallock’s  whimsical,  as  to  the  source  of  the 
‘increment,’  the  function  of  Working  Class  elements  in  di¬ 
rection,  and  the  idleness  of  ‘The  Few,’  as  far  as  production 
is  concerned.  We  recognize,  we  grant  all  that.  Neverthe¬ 
less,  does  not  the  obvious  fact  remain  that  without  the  con¬ 
sent  of  ‘The  Few’  the  workers  can  do  nothing?  Does  not 
Mallock  sufficiently  hint  at  the  fact  in  one  of  the  passages 
quoted  from  his  VI th  Lecture  where  he  speaks  of  the  ‘prac¬ 
tical  helplessness’  of  the  Working  Class  without  the  Capi¬ 
talist  Class?  Is  not  this  helplessness  a  fact?  And  would  it 
not  follow  from  this  fact  that  the  Marxian  principle — ‘Labor 
is  the  producer  of  all  wealth,  to  the  laborer  all  wealth  be¬ 
longs’ — must  be  necessarily  modified  to  read :  ‘Although 
Labor  is  the  producer  of  all  wealth,  nevertheless,  seeing  the 
laborer  is  helpless  without  the  consent  of  the  capitalist,  the 
capitalist  is  entitled  to  a  share  of  the  product  ?’  ” 

No;  it  does  not  follow. 

It  is  not  Labor  alone  that  is  “helpless,”  Government  also 
is  “helpless.”  Without  the  consent  of  the  capitalist  no  war 
oan  to-day  be  declared — he  would  refuse  the  cash  therefor; 


Marx  on  Mallock 


27 


and  at  his  bidding  peace  is  signed.  The  capitalist’s  power, 
without  which  the  worker  is  “helpless,”  though  a  power 
grounded  in  fact,  is  not,  as  Mallock  and  the  capitalists  gener¬ 
ally  would  imply,  a  power  grounded  in  nature.  It  is  a  man¬ 
made  power,  that  man  can  and  will  un-make.  If  a  gang  of 
bandits  appropriates  the  well  in  an  oasis  of  the  desert,  the 
travelers,  of  course,  would  be  “helpless,”  and  would  be  com¬ 
pelled  to  accept  the  bandits’  terms  for  every  cup  of  water.  It 
would,  however,  never  occur  to  the  bandits  to  claim  that  their 
power  in  the  premises  is  a  natural  affair.  They  never  would 
ground  their  claim  upon  the  submission  of  the  travelers  to 
their  terms  on  the  principle  that  the  water  in  the  well,  and 
necessary  to  keep  it  full,  oozed  and  oozes  out  of  their  pores. 
Mallock:,  however,  implies  for  his  “The  Few”  this  very  thing. 
He  virtually  claims  that  the  “increment”  oozes  out  of  the 
capitalist’s  pores,  and  he  imparts  a  semblance  of  truth  to 
the  droll  claim  by  the  obvious  fact  that  capitalist  consent  is 
to-day  necessary  for  the  nation  to  breathe.  Whereupon  he 
raises  this  fact  to  the  dignity  of  a  principle.  The  error  in 
the  Mallockian  principle  lies  in  the  imperfection  of  its  sen¬ 
tence.  The  principle  is  not:  “The  capitalist  is  necessary”; 
the  fact,  not  the  principle,  is :  “The  capitalist  is  necessary 
to-day f"  that  is,  under  the  conditions  which  the  brigands,  who 
appropriated  a  well  in  the  desert  may  be  supposed  to  have 
created.  The  trick  in  the  Mallockian  position  is  an  old  trick 
— it  is  the  trick  behind  which  the  “divine  power  of  royalty” 
once  entrenched  itself,  and  is  still  entrenched  in  the  minds 
of  the  fatuous — the  trick  of  pretending  that  “what  is,  is  nat¬ 
ural  and  must  continue  to  be.”  The  answer  to  the  second 
question  which  I  trust  you  have  in  mind  will  settle  this  point 
more  completely. 

You  will,  I  hope,  wish  to  know  how  did  the  capitalist  come 
by  the  capital  which,  according  to  Marx,  he  starts  in  pos¬ 
session  of.  Upon  this  subject  all  histories  are  eloquent — 
whether  they  be  sober  ones,  like  Bacon’s  history  of  Henry 


28 


Marx  on  MallocTc 


VII,  or  Mark  Twain’s  story  of  ^‘The  Prince  and  tlie  Pauper.” 
The  capital  that  the  capitalist  starts  with,  at  the  logical  and 
historical  starting  point  of  capitalist  production,  is  the  prod¬ 
uct  of  unqualified  and  undisguised  rapine.  Nor  is  it,  nor 
could  it  be  different  in  America.  First,  profiting  by  the  ra¬ 
pine  committed  by  the  European  usurpers  in  expropriating 
the  peasantry,  the  American  bourgeois  was  furnished,  through 
immigration,  with  an  ideal  proletariat  for  human  raw  mate¬ 
rial  for  exploitation;  and,  next,  he  “helped  himself.”  Fraud¬ 
ulent  failures,  fraudulent  fires,  misappropriation  of  trust 
funds,  and  such  other  “ability”-denoting  manoeuvres  without 
exception  supplemented  tlie  “original  accumulation”  with 
which  the  American  capitalist  historically  stepped  upon  the 
stage,  and  an  important  part  of  which  was  the  human  raw 
material  which  he  imported  from  abroad.  Summing  up  the 
review  of  the  process,  Marx  pithily  says  on  page  785: 

“If  money,  according  to  Augier,  'comes  into  the  world  with 
a  congenital  blood-stain  on  one  cheek,’  capital  comes  drip¬ 
ping  from  head  to  foot  from  every  pore,  with  blood  and  dirt” ; 
and  no  capitalist  has  since  appeared  with  the  requisite  start¬ 
er,  or  “original  accumulation,”  free  from  the  smut. 

Accordingly,  neither  as  a  principle  in  philosophy,  nor  as 
a  principle  in  morals  is  the  capitalist  entitled  to  aught.  His 
power  is  the  result  of  usurpation.  He  is  “necessary”  and 
the  workers  “helpless”  only  as  long  as  the  travelers  in  the 
desert  would  tolerate  the  power  and  “necessity”  of  the  ban¬ 
dits  who  appropriated  the  well. 

I  am  done.  But  before  closing  I  ask  to  be  indulged  in 
paraphrasing  Marx. 

There  was  in  Marx’s  time  another  Oxford  professor — 
Mallock  also  is  an  Oxford  professor— Nassau  W.  Senior,  who 
invented  as  beautiful  a  nursery  tale  as  Mallock  in  defense  of 
the  capitalists.  Of  this  Senior,  Marx  says  on  page  207: 

“One  fine  morning,  in  the  year  1836,  Nassau  W.  Senior, 
who  may  be  called  the  bel-esprit  of  English  economists,  well 


Marx  on  Mdlock 


29 


kno^yn,  alike  for  his  economic  ‘^science/  and  for  his  beantifnl 
style,  was  summoned  from  Oxford  to  Manchester,  to  learn,  in 
the  latter  place,  the  political  economy  that  he  taught  in  the 
former.’’  The  invention  of  Senior  was  a  masterpieen  of 
economic  acrobatics;  it  was  akin  to  Mallock’s  acrobatic?  con¬ 
cerning  the  fruitfulness  of  “The  Few”  and  their  consecuent 
right  to  the  “increment.”  Senior’s  performance  Senior  cOled 
the  “Last  Hour” — a  prodigy  by  which  Senior  strove  to  show 
that  if  the  hours  of  labor  were  shortened  hunger  and  want 
would  stalk  through  the  land.  Marx  took  hold  of  the  gentle¬ 
man’s  theory,  and  tore  it  to  tatters,  and  then  flung  the  pieces 
back  in  his  face  with  a  beautiful  imaginary  apostrophe  that 
summed  up  the  situation.  I  shall  make  bold  to  imitate  Marx 
by  closing  this  address  with  an  apostrophe  to  Mallock,  this 
latter-day  Oxford  professor  who  was  summoned  by  the  Civic 
Federation  of  capitalists  to  learn  in  New  York  the  political 
economy  that  he  is  to  teach  in  Oxford — 

Kind  Sir,  by  clothing  your  theory  in  the  garb  of  science 
you  have  deprived  it  of  the  only  chance  it  had  to  float.  You 
should  have  clad  it  in  the  garb  of  the  miraculous.  Paul 
Laf argue  neatly  ridiculed  it  in  advance  with  two  pretty  epi¬ 
grams.  Your  labored  effort  to  prove  “The  Few”  the  source 
of  all  “increment,”  he  neatly  epitomized  with  the  sentence : 
“The  idleness  of  the  capitalist  is  the  source  of  all  wealth.” 
Your  labored  effort  to  prove  that  to  “The  Few”  thm  “increm¬ 
ent”  belomrs,  he  triturated  with  tlie  terse  sentence :  “Wealth 
is  the  product  of  Labor  and  the  reward  of  Idleness.” 

Kind  Sir,  you  dislocate  society  and  you  supplement  the. 
surgical  operation  with  a  miracle.  Society  is  no  dislocated 
entity.  The  elements  requisite  for  modern  production — - 
manual  and  directing  ability — are  closely  joined  and  jointed. 
They  arc  not  independent  of,  they  are  dependent  upon  each 
other,  like  the  various  organs  of  one  body;  and  that  body 
social  is  the  V^'orhing  Class. 

Kind  Sir,  when  you  say  that  the  increment  of  wealth  which 


30 


Marx  on  MallocTc 


results  from  the  modern  method  of  production  comes  f^om 
“The  Few/’  you  utter  a  sentiment  that  is  at  war  with  a  lofty 
human  sentiment  that  has  animated  all  noble  breasts  since 
remotest  antiquity  and  which  it  has  been  reserved  to  the 
Socialist  Movement  to  bring  down  from  the  mists  of  unprac- 
ticability^  and  to  furnish  it  with  a  solid  basis  upon  which  to 
plant  itself.  The  great  moral  sentiment  of  the  Brother¬ 
hood  of  Man  becomes  a  fertile  sentiment  for  practical  con¬ 
duct  only  when  the  material  conditions  have  developed  to  the 
point  of  exposing  the  swagger  of  Individualism;  to  the  point 
of  revealing  the  fact  that  Individualism  is  a  fetter  to  human 
brotherhood  and  to  individuality  alike;  finally  to  the  point  of 
disclosing  the  means  for  the  realization  of  the  aspiration  of 
human  brotherhood.  Individuality  can  not  be  developed  in 
penury.  The  power  to  dispel  penury  is  a  latent  power  in 
manhind.  Your  intellect  is  still  at  the  barbarian’s  stage  that 
dislocates  the  capabilities  of  the  species  by  imputing  them 
to  a  caste.  That  the  caste  of  “The  Pew”  is  purely  imaginary 
may  be  all  the  more  creditable  to  your  imagination,  but  all 
the  more  discreditable  to  your  grasp  of  social  science. 

Kind  Sir,  vast  as  our  astonishment  is  at  your  discovery 
of  the  useful  activity  of  your  “The  Few/’  their  own  aston¬ 
ishment  at  the  discovery,  through  you,  must  have  been  vaster 
still. 

Kind  Sir,  we  do  not  deny  that  “The  Few”  are  active.  No¬ 
body  denies  that.  Their  activity  is  intense.  It  is,  however, 
not  an  activity  that  produces,  it  is  the  pickpocket’s  activity 
which  transfers  wealth  from  those  to  whom  it  belongs  to  those 
to  whom  it  does  not  belong.  It  is  a  conspicuous  activity  as 
conspicuous  as  the  Czar’s  activity— and  as  deadly. 

Kind  Sir,  your  attitude  illustrates  two  Marxian  principles 

the  imperviousness  of  a  usurping  class  to  sense,  and  the 
fatality  that  pursues  a  class  whose  historic  mission  is  ended, 
and  yet  would  hold  the  stage.  If  the  usurping  class  of  “The 
±ew’  were  not  impervious  to  sense  you,  who  surely  do  not 


Marx  on  Malloch 


31 


mean  lo  falsify  facts,  would  never  have  incurred  the  blunder 
of  palpably  misstating  Marx ;  if  the  mission  of  “The  Pew^^ 
were  not  over  and  they  could  realize  the  fact,  such  a  distin¬ 
guished  spokesman  of  their  caste  as  yourself  would  not  be 
seen  indulging  in  the  contortions  necessary  to  avoid  the  term 
co-operation,  and  thereby  seek  to  escape  its  consequences. 

Finally,  kind  Sir,  your  argument  is  welcome  to  the  So¬ 
cialist — uigbiy  welcome.  If  such  a  travesty  of  Fact  and 
Ihason  as  you  present  against  Socialism  is  the  strongest  at¬ 
tack  po'^'bile — then  we  Socialists  feel  re-strengthened  in  our 
position  that  Labor  is  the  sole  producer  of  all  wealth,  and, 
therefore,  all  wealth  belongs  to  Labor. 

in  the  language  that  Marx  closes  his  apostrophe  with  in 
the  instance  of  Senior,  I  say : 

“And  now,  good  sir,  farewell,  and  may  we  meet  again  in 
yonder  better  world — but  not  before.” 


From  a  Mechanical  Standpoint 
it  Is  the  first  one  of  Marx’s  works  published  in 
America  that  can  he  looked  upon  as  a  careful 
piece  of  publishing.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  this 
excellent  volume  is  the  forerunner  of  other 
volumes  of  Marx,  and  that  America  will  have 
the  honor  of  publishing  an  edition  that  is  ac¬ 
curate  as  to  text,  thorough  in  annotations,  con¬ 
venient  in  size  and  presentable  In  every  way. 
The  present  book  will  delight  the  lover  of 
Marx,  and  every  Socialist  will  desire  a  copy 
of  it. — N.  Y.  Daily  People. 


By  KARL  MARX.  Edited  by  his  daugh¬ 
ter,  ELEANOR  MARX  AVELING. 

PRICE  20  CENTS 


This  book  is  especially  timely,  like  everything  else  that  Marx 
wrote.  Written  a  couple  of  years  before  his  “Capital”  appeared, 
it  is  an  address  to  workingmen,  and  covers  in  popular  form  many 
of  the  subjects  later  scientifically  expanded  in  “Capital.” 

It  is  unversally  considered  as  the  best  epitome  we  have  of  the 
first  volume  of  “Capital,”  and  as  such  is  invaluable  to  the  be¬ 
ginner  in  economics.  It  places  him  squarely  oh  his  feet  at  the 
threshold  of  his  inquiry;  that  is,  in  a  position  where  his  per¬ 
ceptive  faculties  cannot  be  deceived  and  his  reasoning  power 
vitiated  by  the  very  use  of  his  eyesight;  whereas,  by  the  very 
nature  of  "his  capitalist  surroundings,  he  now  stands  on  his  head 
and  sees  all  things  inverted. 

Special  interest  attaches  to  what  Marx  says  relative  to 
strikes.  Were  the  working  class  thoroughly  acquainted  with  the 
subject  matter  of  this  little  work,  we  should  hear  no  more  of  the 
“common  ground”  on  which  capital  and  labor  might  meet  to 
settle  their  differences. 

The  thousand  and  one  schemes  that  are  daily  being  flaunted 
in  the  faces  of  the  working  class  by  the  lieutenants  of  the  capi¬ 
talists  show  the  necessity  there  is  on  the  part  of  the  working 
class  for  a  comprehensive  understanding  of  the  matter  of  wages, 
the  relation  of  the  wage  worker  to  the  employer,  the  source  of 
profits,  and  the  relation  between  profits  and  wages.  These  and 
other  subjects  are  here  presented,  and  so  clearly  does  Marx 
present  them  that  all  he  has  to  say  can  be  understood  by  any 
person  willing  to  pay  close  attention  to  his  words. 


NEW  YORK  LABOR  NEWS  COMPANY, 

45  ROSE  ST.,  NEW  YORK,  N.  Y. 


GUSTAV  BANG 


CRISES  IN  EUROPEAN 

HISTORY 

Translated  by  Arnold  Petersen 

A  PAMPHLET  WHICH  EVERY  STUDENT  OF 
HISTORY  AND  ECONOMICS  SHOULD  POSSESS 


“As  an  economic  interpretation  of  three  important  crises  in 
European  history  it  is  perhaps  one  of  the  best,  considering 
the  brevity  of  the  rvork.  Dr.  Bang  here  employs  to  the  best 
advantage  the  Marxian  key,  and  succeeds  in  unravelling  what 
to  the  average  reader  usually  appear  to  be  mysteries  or  near¬ 
mysteries.  As  the  author  explains  in  his  introduction,  the  mo¬ 
tive  power  of  historical  changes  is  to  be  found  in  the  econom¬ 
ic  basis  of  a  given  society,  in  the  methods  of  production  and 
exchange  peculiar  to  that  society.  To  put  it  in  this  manner 
is,  of  course,  to  lay  oneself  open  to  the  charge  of  teaching  that 
the  economic  basis,  and  nothing  else,  influences  the  historical 
processes.  Dr.  Bang,  however,  in  the  concrete  examples 
chosen  furnishes  ample  evidence  to  show  that  wh’le  that  un¬ 
doubtedly  is  the  chief,  and  in  the  long  run  the  really  important 
factor,  the  line  cannot  be  drawn  too  sharply  between  cause  and 
effect,  seeing  the  effect  frequently  reacts  upon  the  cause,  stim¬ 
ulating  it  and  aiding  in  accelerating  (or  retarding  temporarihq 
as  the  case  may  be)  the  historical  process.” — From  the  preface. 

56  Pages 

PRICE  15  CENTS 

New  York  Labor  News  Company 

45  ROSE  ST.,  NEW  YORK,  N.  Y. 


COMPLETE  FIRST  TIME  IN  ENGLISH 


EUGENE  SUE’S 

THE 

Mysteries  of  the  People 

■”  OR  " 

History  of  a  Proletarian  Family  Across  the  Ages 


^  A  fascinating  work,  thrilling  as  fiction,  yet  embracing 
a  'Comprehensive  history  of  the  oppressing  and  oppressed 
classes  from  the  commencement  of  the  present  era.  ^ 
These  stories  are  nineteen  in  number,  and  their  chron¬ 
ological  order  is  the  following: 

1—  THE  GOLD  SICKLE  . 

2—  THE  BRASS  BELL  . 

3—  THE  IRON  COLLAR  . 

4—  THE  SILVER  CROSS  . 

5—  THE  CASQUE’S  LARK  . 

6—  THE  PONIARD’S  HILT  . 

7—  THE  BRANDING  NEEDLE  . 

8—  THE  ABBATIAL  CROSIER  . 

9—  THE  CARLOVINGIAN  COINS  .. 

10—  THE  IRON  ARROW-HEAD  . 

11—  THE  INFANT’S  SKULL  . 

12—  THE  PILGRIM’S  SHELL  . 

13—  THE  IRON  PINCERS  . 

14—  THE  IRON  TREVET . 

15—  THE  EXECUTIONER’S  KNIFE  . 

16—  THE  POCKET  BIBLE,  Vol.  I  . 

17—  THE  POCKET  BIBLE;  Vol.  II  .... 

18—  THE  BLACKSMITH’S  HAMMER 

19—  THE  SWORD  OF  HONOR,  Vol.  I 

20—  THE  SWORD  OF  HONOR,  Vol.  II 

21—  THE  GALLEY-SLAVE’S  RING  .... 

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